S'mores Cupcakes

Are you tired of this winter yet? I have been for some time now. Even our vacation in Florida last month with temperatures in the high 70's didn't help me to feel better about this bitter, cold, snowy mess that won't quit. So, I decided to bring a little summer into the kitchen. Actually, this recipe was my daughter's idea. We have been working on it off and on for some time now. The cupcake flavor was a bit of a challenge, but we figured it out.

The cupcakes are graham flavored. Most people make graham crackers and graham flavored things with graham flour; but as you might guess, it is not gluten free. So, we tried a couple different things before we got it right. Then we filled the cupcakes with chocolate filling and frosted them with toasted marshmallow frosting. They are crazy good. I mean crazy good! 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature

1/2 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup Honey

1 1/2 Tablespoons Molasses

2 Large Eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon Vanilla

3/4 cup Soy Flour

1/2 cup Tapioca Starch/Flour

1/2 cup Potato Starch

2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Xanthum Gum

1/2 teaspoon Salt

3/4 cup Milk, hot

Chocolate Filling

1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
2/3 cup Milk
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Milk Chocolate
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup Milk Chocolate
Marshmallow Frosting
4 Large Egg Whites, room temperature
1 cup Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350° F.

Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Set aside

In stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat butter, sugar, honey and molasses until smooth.

Mix in eggs.

Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together soy flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, baking powder, baking soda, xanthum gum and salt.

With mixer on low, slowly add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, 1/2 the milk, 1/3 of the dry ingredients, the other half of the milk, and the final 1/3 of the dry ingredients.

Using a medium scoop, scoop batter into lined cupcake tins. Bake for 20 minutes.

Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then transfer cupcakes to cooling racks to cool completely.

While cupcakes are cooling, make chocolate filling. 

In a small saucepan over medium heat, mix together cocoa powder, brown sugar, milk, salt and milk chocolate until boiling.

Remove from heat; add butter, vanilla and milk chocolate; and stir until completed mixed. Let cool and thicken.

When chocolate filling has cooled, fill cupcakes. We put the chocolate filling in a squeeze bottle, and used the handle of a spoon to create a whole in the cupcakes. (When I make these again, I will fill the cupcakes with more chocolate filling than this time.)

To make the marshmallow frosting, fill a medium saucepan with 1 inch of water and bring it to a simmer over medium heat.

Place the eggs whites, sugar, cream of tartar and salt in the stand mixer bowl and whisk by hand to combine. Place the bowl in the saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water. Heat the egg mixture, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is hot to the touch (about 120° F) about six minutes.

Transfer the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Turn the mixer to medium and whisk for 1 minute. Increase the speed to high and whisk until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 5 minutes more. Add the vanilla and whisk until just incorporated, about 1 minute. 

Transfer frosting to a gallon size zip-top bag and snip a corner to use as a pastry bag. Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes.

Using a kitchen torch, lightly toast the marshmallow frosting. There you have it - S'mores Cupcakes! Share with your friends and family to bring some sunshine into your life. Enjoy!

After all, "Sunshine is the best medicine!"

~Sheryl

Follow and Like I Can't Believe It's Gluten Free on Facebook.

S'mores Sandwich Cookie

It's Memorial Day weekend. That can only mean one thing - SUMMER is here! Summer! My absolute favorite time of the year. I love the sun, the weather, the heat, swimming in the lake, the long days, BBQing, weekends away with friends and family, campfires, and the list goes on. It just doesn't get any better than summer. And what is the one food that everyone associates with summer and campfires? Why s'mores, of course. I am a HUGE fan of s'mores, always have been. The gooey, toasted marshmallow and slightly melted chocolate bar sandwiched between two crispy graham crackers. Mmmm. So many great memories come flooding into my head every time I think about or taste a s'more. 

So, in honor of Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of my favorite season, I decided to create a s'more cookie. After a few failed attempts, I think I finally came up with a winner. I have to give a shout out to my hubby. He deserves super kudos. I was originally trying to make a cookie with the chocolate and marshmallows all mixed in. He helped me see the error of my ways, and suggested that I make it a sandwich cookie; so that it doesn't just taste like a s'more, but it actually looks like one too. We make a pretty amazing team my hubby and me. I'm extremely grateful that I have been blessed to share my life with him. 

I'm stoked about this recipe. If you love s'mores even half as much as I do, I think you will really like these. Join me in welcoming summer with a batch of your own. 

What You Will Need:
KitchenAid mixer or a handheld electric mixer
Whisk
Cookie Sheet
Silicone Mat (optional)
Spatula
Cooling Racks
Small Saucepan
2 Small Offset Spatulas or 2 Butter Knives (Offset spatulas come in all sizes. They are used a lot in decorating cupcakes and cakes. They make it much easier to control the frosting when you are spreading it.)

Ingredients:

For the Graham Cookie
3/4 cup + 3 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, room temperature
1 Tablespoon Molasses
3/4 cup Honey
1/2 cup White Sugar
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 cup White Rice Flour (You could also use Brown Rice Flour. It would add a nuttier flavor, which might be good to help simulate the graham cracker flavor.)
1/2 cup Potato Starch
1/2 cup Tapioca Starch/Flour
1/4 cup Ground Flax Meal
1 1/2 teaspoons Xanthum Gum
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt

For the Marshmallow Filling
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, softened
1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
One 7 oz. jar of Marshmallow Creme
1 teaspoon Vanilla

For Chocolate Ganache Filling
6 Tablespoons Chocolate Chips (I used semi-sweet.)
1/4 cup Half and Half

Directions:

For the Graham Cookie
1. In a bowl, whisk together the rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, flax, xanthum gum, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

 2. In the bowl of your KitchenAid Mixer or a separate bowl, cream together the butter, molasses, honey and both sugars. Make sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl a few times. The molasses loves to sink to the bottom of the bowl, and because it is so thick and sticky it won't mix in without a little help from you and your spatula.

Ingredients before mixed.

This is what it should look like after you mix it.

3. Crack the eggs in a separate bowl. I like to use a separate bowl, because no matter how skilled I am at cracking eggs, it is inevitable that once in a while a little shell will drop in. I don't like to eat egg shells, and I don't believe anybody else does either. 

Is it just me, or do you see the smiley face too?

4. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix until well-blended in between each addition.

Adding the eggs. Sorry this picture is a little blurry.

 5. Add vanilla extract and mix until well-blended.

Adding the vanilla extract.

This is what the mixture looks like after the
vanilla extract is added.

6. Slowly add the dry ingredients. Careful not to set your mixer too high or you will end up wearing most of it, not to mention the mess you will have on the counter. Mix until well-blended.

Slowly adding dry ingredients with mixer set to low.

This is what the dough should look like.
Too bad there isn't such a thing as
scratch-n-sniff computer screens.

 7. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour or until well-chilled.

8. Preheat oven to 350° F. With greased hands roll 1/2 Tablespoon of dough into a ball and place onto cookie sheet with silicone mat or lightly greased cookie sheet. Cookies should be approximately 1 inches apart. (I actually used my tablespoon scoop to make these cookies, but they would have been much better if they were smaller. So I am altering the directions for you, so your end result will be better.) 

9. Bake for approximately 8-12 minutes. You want them to be crispy so they can handle the moisture of both fillings. Let the cookies cool for 4 minutes on the cookie sheet then transfer to cooling racks to cool the rest of the way.

I learned a really important lesson that I think is valuable to share. Silicone mats tend to swell from the heat in the oven. If you are using cookie sheets with sides, this becomes a problem as your cookies will become misshapen like the ones you see below when the mat curls. 

Once I switched to a cookie sheet without sides, I had no more problems with odd shaped cookies. 

Set cookies aside until fillings are made.

For the Marshmallow Filling
1. Beat all ingredients together with an electric mixer or KitchenAid mixer at medium speed until smooth, approximately 3 minutes.

Marshmallow filling ingredients before mixed.

Look at that gooey, sweet marshmallow filling.

For the Chocolate Ganache Filling
1. Simmer both ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally,  until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, approximately 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool approximately 1 minute.

Chocolate and cream in pan before melted.

Rich, chocolatey goodness. I can barely keep
myself from licking the pan!

To Assemble Cookie Sandwich
1. Set up your work area. You will need the cookies, both fillings, something to spread each filling with (2 small offset spatulas or 2 butter knives), and a container for the assemble cookie sandwiches.

Don't be fooled - My work area was really much more
spread out than this. I just needed to condense it
to fit it in the picture. The tool below the
butter knife is an offset spatula.

2. Spread 1/2-1 teaspoon of chocolate ganache on the flat side of one cookie.

A little goes a long way. Try not to get too excited with it.

3. Spread 1/2-1 teaspoon of marshmallow filling on the flat side of another cookie.

Don't overdo it with the marshmallow filling. I learned
the hard way that you really don't need a whole
lot of this gooey goodness. It is super sweet
and if you use too much, your cookies will ooze
all of the place and make a sticky mess.

4. Sandwich both cookies together will fillings in between the cookies. Voila! You have a S'mores Sandwich Cookie. Repeat until all cookies have been joined into s'mores heavenly goodness. 

Doesn't that look familiar?!?

5. Share them with your family and friends, and make a toast to the beginning of summer. May it not fly by too quickly.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Take some time to remember those who have sacrificed so much for our safety and freedom.

"In the Kingdom of God, service is not a stepping-stone to nobility; it is nobility, the only kind of nobility that is recognized." ~ T.W. Manson

Sheryl